“Vincent” was released on Don McLean’s second studio album, American Pie, in the fall of 1971. American Pie is listed in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book….this track and of course the title track are probably the two main reasons for it’s inclusion, but it’s a very strong album overall.
This video came about because I’ve been trying to make something happen for “American Pie” (surely one of the songs that had the greatest impact in my earliest remembrances of rock and roll music….when I was maybe 10 or 11 I’d stay up all night to hear “American Pie” or “Space Oddity” or other favorites from those early years), but I’m struggling, so I thought I’d make one for my second favorite track from the album.
This is a special one….musically and lyrically, it’s an astonishingly beautiful song. I was inspired to make this video when I came across a painting by Alex Ruiz called “Starry Night”…a homage he painted thinking about the sky Vincent van Gogh was under when he painted his “Starry Night” in 1889. (He is an amazing artist and this print is for sale at the link below…check it out!) Happy to work it up…..hope you enjoy the effort!
As usual HUGE THANKS to everyone who’s art contributed to this new art….THANK YOU!!!!
SPECIAL THANKS:
Starry Night by Alex Ruiz
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/alex-ruiz.html
[Lyrics]
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land
Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand
Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you
Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will
flac doctor who
